


Dead Man's March

by Withstarryeyes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War Spoilers, Death, Funerals, Other, Sad Tony, Spoilers, tw:attemptedsuicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:38:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Withstarryeyes/pseuds/Withstarryeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He swallows thickly and turns around to face the sea of black. A death parade, how lovely. He clears his throat, once, twice, three times before trying to speak. There’s so much attention on him and it’s overwhelming. Ironic due to his childhood existing in the spotlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Man's March

Roses, black suits trotting past. There was sobbing he noted as an afterthought. All he could do was focus on his face, pale and blank. Dead. Was that? Of course, he’d never had the best of luck. 

“Oh Rhodes, I’d always known you’d leave me someday. Couldn’t take my schemes any longer could you?” He thinks he’s going for a mocking tone but the tears are ruining it. 

He swallows thickly and turns around to face the sea of black. A death parade, how lovely. He clears his throat, once, twice, three times before trying to speak. There’s so much attention on him and it’s overwhelming. Ironic due to his childhood existing in the spotlight. 

“James was a good man…” Tony started out, twisting the end of his tie around his hands, “I can’t do this. Talk about him like the plot to a goddamn movie. Rhodes was my best friend,” He pauses and draws in a breath. “He was my savior. How many people would refuse to lose hope that their best friend, captured in Afghanistan and missing for months, wasn’t dead.” He can feel the sobs notching in his lungs. Stealing his breath and catching his words like butterflies in a net. 

The scene is eerily silent and Tony prays for noise. Any noise because it’s like holding Rhodey in his arms all over again. Praying to god for a noise, any noise. Breathing, crying, talking. It’s all too much and he’d just lost him and and and…

There’s a hand on his shoulder, leading him off the stage and Tony blinks away the haze. Her hair is perfect but her makeup is smudged down her cheeks, “I’m so sorry Pepper, I’m so sorry,” And he is. For not protecting him, for dragging James into this mess. His mess. 

She doesn’t say anything. He’s being herded like a sheep. He can’t seem to care.

Humming from his mouth, he’s speaking. Rambling actually about how he failed and how he’d never live this down. There’s a lot of crying in between and the ache in his chest feels a lot like being hooked up to that car battery. 

“It should’ve been me, take the asshole leave the saint. That’s the rule,” Tony’s angry now, his tone becoming dangerous. The world was all too cruel. 

“Tony,” Pepper’s voice breaks and Tony realizes he’s hurting her. She’d just lost Rhodey too and now Tony was talking like he did right before… well it didn’t work anyway. Damn pills. 

“I’ve already had my nine lives Pepper that’s all I’m saying,” it’s an excuse for his line of thought. 

“You deserve more, so did he. Life’s not fair,” His thoughts fade into the room around him. It’s empty all wood floors and no chairs. The rafters are wood and the walls are a pale rose. It looks suitable for a wedding, not a funeral. Too happy. 

“What do we do now?” Tony asks. He’s breaking, shattering like a bottle of whiskey dropped. Death had invaded his life before but this was the third time it’d felt personal and Tony was too tired to hold himself together with tape and glue and obsessiveness. Survival seemed moot at this point.

He’s existing in seconds, moments. Get through half a minute, breathe and repeat. He breathes out shaky and lets his eyes fill up again with tears. 

“Oh, Tony,” Pepper’s voice is just as delicate. 

She wraps her arms around him and he can make out her rose perfume just under the scent of her hairspray. It smells like the flowers in his childhood kitchen, inches away from his mother’s cooking. The memory brings up another sharp pain of longing. In minutes he’s just the little kid hearing for the first time that his parents aren’t coming home. His mother wasn’t coming home. He’s barely breathing now. Just deep, thick gasps that are as salty as pretzels and fistfuls of Pepper’s suit in his fists. 

“You’re all I have left now,” The words taste like black licorice as he spits them out, convulsing with sobs against her body. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Pepper soothes and in her mind she prays it’s true. She can’t leave Tony, not if anyone wanted him to survive. He could build armour in Afghanistan but could he couldn’t hide from emptiness. 

He runs out of water for tears and the energy from crying but the fist twisting his chest is still there. His cheeks sting, all puffy and irritated. He can feel the redness in his eyes and the way his hair flips into them makes them hurt more. It just had to be Rhodey. 

That was the Stark legacy afterall. Take down everyone around him. Howard lost Steve. Tony had worse luck. Friends vaporizing into thin air, taking all those roots he’d planted and digging them up. 

“We will get through this,” Tony moves his head to look at Pepper. Her face is stony once again and he can only imagine how many years of dealing with him it took to perfect that look. 

Wreck and ruin and punish. That was all Tony could do. Even to those he truly loved. Worse than any villain, any Loki or Hammer was little ‘ol Stark. He destroyed and never rebuilt. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that i had to write this, i just couldn't resist it much longer. If you liked it please leave a review/kudos, I really appreciate the feedback.


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